India Under the Impact of Western Political Ideas and Institutions

Abstract

HEREAS, IN EARLIER TIMES, the East was the fertile womb of great religions, spawning them across the face of the world, in these times Western political ingenuity is reciprocating in an awesome compliment by transmitting to the politically infertile East viable political ideas and institutions. The phenomenon of liberated, underprivileged peoples seizing upon the political institutions and ideals of their former Western masters has become commonplace-so common that the significance of it needs analysis. A commentary par excellence on this political impact of West on East is the fact that all former colonial countries have embraced the outward forms of Western representative institutions. The departing captains and kings may or may not have left a legacy of enmity behind, but they have always left an admiration for their political talent. This largess to the Asian and African by the West is the great impact of these times. Hardly without exception, these freed people are creating constituent assemblies, writing constitutions, electing representative parliaments, making laws, organizing political parties, debating the merits of federal vs. unitary systems, separation of powers, ministerial responsibility, universal suffrage, human rights, independent judiciaries, economic planning and foreign policy.1 As often as not these political amateurs encounter a diversity of difficulties grafting imported political institutions onto indigenous customs and traditions and making them work. The absence too often of a strong sense of national unity, the paucity of democratic experiences, the weakness of political parties, and the impotence of other voluntary political groups plague them. The insidious interplay in a world of bipolar powers competing for allies and subverting new regimes before they are firmly set on their courses all contribute to the political instability so much in evidence today. Were it not that the prolonged struggles for freedom from alien Western rule have proven fruitful in breeding familiar Western instruments of revolutionary action there would be even more disorder.2